What makes our method unique? I invite you to read this section carefully because it explains in a little bit of detail our particular take on improving sales performance. If you have any questions, or require any kind of additional clarification, please feel free to contact me personally, either by email or phone.

How do you obtain lift? How do you make productivity predictable? How do you build a reliable sales engine?
In my coaching, training, and consulting, these are the fundamental questions I help my clients answer.

These are three separate questions, but they have a common answer:
The ability to merge strategic insight with disciplined and focused activity is the key to sales success.

To improve results, you need to understand the four distinct areas that define success. These can be best understood by referring to the following diagram. I call this the Sales Productivity Matrix.

The two elements of sales are prospecting and converting.  There are basically four  separate but related challenges in the sales game.
Quadrant 1 (Prospecting Insight) is about finding your best “direction.” What’s your unique path? Finding the correct path depends on two things: (a) understanding the market segments and selecting your niche, and (b) knowing how to leverage you own personal sales brand to work this niche.
Quadrant 2 (Prospecting Action) is about disciplined activity that results in obtaining a qualified prospect. Once you know what to do, you need sustained and focused effort to reach your appropriate audience. This about managing your own motivation and energy levels to “stay in the game.”
Quadrant 3 (Converting Insight) is about learning the art of conversation and effective inquiry. There is a pattern to successfully converting a suitable prospect. Knowing what, how, and when to say it will determine your success at the kitchen table.
Quadrant 4 (Converting Action) is about the ability to listen deeply, and the agility to shift and respond according to the client’s needs. Managing the sales conversation also requires the flexibility to adjust your “dialect,” tone and techniques in real time.

Effective prospecting depends on first knowing the “Who, What, Where, and How.” It means knowing the segments and market niche you can serve best. This requires understanding and leveraging your unique sales brand – the sum total of your skills, talents, and sales voice. Then it becomes matter of stamina and the ability to adjust your game as market conditions change.

Converting the prospect depends on learning the art of inquiry, mastering the elements of the “conceptual” agreement, and the ability to deeply understand the emotional issues that accompany a client’s financial decision. In both activities, a “systematic” method helps you focus your action on the field. Having the correct playbook, the appropriate choice of strategy, and the ability to execute consistently over time are the prerequisites to predictable productivity.

A major flaw in most sales performance “interventions” is applying a “cure” without knowing root causes. For example, asking people to work harder without the benefit of a correct “blueprint” does not translate to better or more consistent performance.
Conversely, it doesn’t matter if you have all the knowledge in the world if you are afflicted with a paralyzing case of sales call reluctance.

Proper diagnostic assessment and problem identification is the foundation for effective coaching and training. Each quadrant in the matrix represents a whole set of behavioral and tactical issues that can be addressed systematically. The “fix” (i.e., tools and techniques) works more effectively when you know what area needs attention.

Sometimes it’s the use of more effective “scripts.” Other times it’s installing a time-management system and/or a CRM to manage your pipeline more efficiently. It could be refining the “local” dialect needed to communicate your value proposition, or learning the watering holes of your referral niche. In quite a few cases, “wrong synch” is the culprit, with the fix necessitating a major personal brand overhaul and/or different niche strategy. Sometimes it’s the “right message” to a wrong audience, or vice versa. Typically this happens when a producer is forced to play in a niche where he has no natural affinity for, or where his unique value proposition is marginally appreciated or understood. Regardless of what tactic is used, in the end it’s all about managing the process to minimize the random variables that enter the sales equation.

Before you can manage, however, you must be able the identify and comprehend what factors get in the way of successful prospecting and converting. You must understand the sales cycle (and the corresponding customer experience) as a  process. You must understand it as a system of interrelated learning opportunities. Without this clarity, the sales effort becomes a series of events that you have very little control of.

Here’s one of the key discoveries I’ve made in studying and practicing “the art and science of the sell” for the last twenty years. You cannot depend on a fix to increase the predictability of positive outcomes when you don’t know how it acts on a problem. In other words, if you don’t know why something works, chances are you’re going to have a harder time replicating the results you get. Sales totally becomes a game of chance. When this happens, experience doesn’t add up to improvement. There is little learning. There is meager satisfaction. You play longer, you stay in the game longer, but there is no commensurate reward. When you understand the structure and dynamics of the process, then your productivity and income matches the effort you put in. As you further master the process, you are able to leverage your time through technology and effective “outsourcing.” Top producers are where they are because they have built a sales engine that maximizes and replicates what they do best.

The unity of insight and action is the key to sales success. It is also the foundation of our approach to helping clients. Proper insight (the right diagnosis or problem identification) precedes tactical solutions. Correct action must match the problem: coaching, training, mentoring, or consulting are different modes of helping teams or individuals improve their game. The “content” of these solutions depends on what areas needs addressing.

For example, some “prospecting action” challenges (Quadrant 2 problem) are best met by identifying and quantifying specific call reluctance behaviors (there are twelve distinct types), and instituting a coaching program to restore functional activity. Poor conversion ratios may be a function of failure to dial down or up as needed in real time (Quadrant 4 problem). The solution might take the form of a coaching and/or mentoring program to improve agility and flexibility at the table. It may be that the producer simply does not  know the “map” of the senior kitchen table conversation (Quadrant 3 problem). Sometimes it’s the wrong map. In either case the salesperson will be unable to establish an emotional connection with the prospect. The answer to this need is a training program that carefully walks the salesperson through the different phases of the “sales narrative” including specific “modeling” on how to handle and answer objections. Some producers are hampered by their lack of direction: they work very hard at prospecting, but they don’t get the results they want. This could very well be a Quadrant 1 challenge. The help that best addresses this need could be basic training in senior market segmentation and strengths-based assessment and coaching. The end result of this two-pronged approach is the improved ability to synch one’s unique talent and skills profile to the proper niche that brings in predictable and consistent business.

The limits of productivity are determined by limitations in insight and/or action. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The drag factor that holds a salesperson back will always be addressed much more effectively and efficiently if one understand the structure and dynamics of “the problem.”

Suffice it to say that although there’s a huge variety of behaviors and attitudes that can hamper sales effectiveness, there is actually a limited number of root causes that drive them. We help clients assess and identify the fundamental problems by understanding both symptoms and causes. We identify the cause-and-effect linkages in the sales cycle that is affecting the producer’s performance.  Then we help them address the problem in a fundamental way so that they develop the internal resources, confidence, and capability for continued self-improvement.

Sales isn’t rocket science. Nor should it be. At the end of the day, it’s all about heart and skill. Courage and ability.

How do you get better?

By knowing what it takes. By learning how to put things together so you move the dial just a little bit more, with a lot less effort.

I am utterly confident that I can help you in both.